The ADHD Artist: Start On a Win

Art and ADHD. Yeah. Name a more iconic duo.

In early 2021 I started researching ADHD more seriously. “Oh. There’s a name for this” I thought to myself, reading excerpts from hundreds of thousands of ADHD-riddled brains. Why am I always late? Why can’t I sleep properly? Why is there a concrete wall between me and getting s*** done?

Great! Now my nemesis has a name, but do they have a weakness?

Today I’m going to share pro-tip #1 for taking the reigns on ADHD as an artist. Start your day on a win. Whatever you start doing is what you will be doing most of the day. Let’s dive in;

Through neuroscience we understand that the brain consumes ATP throughout the day, the majority of which is available when we first wake up and the least when we go to bed. It’s generally understood that we have the most capacity for decision-making and data-processing the more ATP we have available. There are two massive consumers of our brain’s daily energy. The first is decision-making. There’s a limit to how many decisions we can make in a day. The second is task-switching. “I’m a multitasker™!” We think to ourselves, as our brain does cognitive CrossFit and KO’s half-way through the day.

There’s no powerup pellets here, mate.

How does this help the ADHD brain? It doesn’t! By understanding this system, we can still work around it instead of against it.

So task-switching is exhausting, but anybody with ADHD brain can tell you that all the brain wants to do is task switch. So here’s the kicker; at the start of the day you are in a vulnerable but mentally fertile place. Your tasks, concerns, and expectations have yet to start piling up (oh they’re there, they just haven’t piled yet). It’s easy to abuse this space by immediately getting down to business on your to-do list. After all, you’re energized and ready to make decisions and task switch on a whim! *Cue loud angry buzzer* Look at it this way. Whatever seed you plant at the beginning of the day is the plant that will grow for the rest of it. If we plant 20 seeds, we will spend the whole day switching between which one we tend to. Luckily, the ADHD brain has one power greater than all the rest- hyperfocus. What if we plant one seed for the day and let our brain do the rest?

Here’s the challenge; start a one-week task journal. For each day, write down one task that you want to be the highlight of that day. Make sure you wake up giving yourself ample time for this exercise. Go about your morning routine, but make sure that the first intentional task you do that day is whichever task you’ve written for that day. Here’s mine; tomorrow, after I wake up and have my morning mental breakdown, I will do one hour of coding practice/lessons. Then at the end of the day, I’ll jot down which coding projects I started/finished throughout the day.

If the exercise is working, you’ll find your mind defaulting to the task you’ve selected throughout the day. Instead of bouncing between thoughts and ideas, your mind will centre itself around the challenges and ideas presented by your morning task. It’s the plant you’re growing that day! As a bonus, you’ve started an important task when you had the most mental resources available to tackle new problems. That’s what I call optimization!

Tl;dr

Start your day by doing the task you want your day to be centered around. Let your brain do the rest.

Did the challenge work for you? Did it flop hard? Let me know how it went for you! I look forward to hearing your feedback.

- J